Did our latest GMAT Practice Questions scare you into studying? We gave you two questions, and today we have the answers and explanations we know you’re just dying to read.

Question Explanations
The First Question:

Researchers have found that, on average one American should be struck by lightning every 13 days.

A. one American should be struck by lightning every 13 days

B. an American should be struck by lightning once in every 13 days

C. lightning will strike some American once every 13 days

D. every 13 days an American is struck by lightning

E. every 13 days an American should be struck by lightning -

Always start these problems with eliminating as many of the answers as you can. Do a vertical scan of the answer choices, and you will see three options – “should be struck”, “will strike”, and “is struck.” “Should be struck” implies … Read full post

If you’re thinking of going to business school but haven’t yet looked into GMAT test dates or taken a GMAT practice test, not to fear! You’ve come to the right place to learn about the format, timing, and scoring of the GMAT test and GMAT practice test, the latter of which we offer free on our website year-round.

The CAT (computer adaptive test) and GMAT scoring

Understanding how the CAT works and approaching GMAT practice questions with a few targeted strategies will help you get in fighting form for your GMAT test date.

A CAT is more than just a digital version of a written exam. It actually adapts to your performance as you’re taking the test. When you begin each category, the computer assumes you have an average score and gives you a question of medium difficulty. As you answer … Read full post

We gave you a challenging series of GMAT Reading Comprehension tasks to work on in our last blog entry. Now that you’ve tried them out on your own (if you haven’t yet, pause now and take 10-20 minutes to do so), we’re going to walk through a full analysis of the passage and the practice questions. Here’s the passage once more for your reference.

GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice: The Passage

“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by homeless opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoisseurs.

“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by homeless opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.

Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order … Read full post

As I mentioned in my previous exploration of GMAT Reading Comprehension, most of the questions focus on the author’s purpose, so if you can at least identify her main idea as you slog through the passage, the author will guide you to the right answer in three out of four of those main question types:

The correct answer to a Global question is essentially a statement of the author’s purpose

The right answer choice to Inference questions, even though these can seem completely speculative, will never contradict the author’s purpose, and is often directly informed by that purpose.

Logic questions look for an answer that addresses why our author has included a detail or a paragraph in her passage; the why is that that detail or paragraph always serves her purpose.

Common GMAT Reading Comprehension Trap Answers

Now comes the fun part: beating the test designers at their … Read full post

There are some fortunate beings among us who seem to thrive on GMAT Reading Comprehension problems. The rest of look on with veiled mirthless smiles at these blessed souls, all the while muttering under our collective breaths, “what, are ya nuts!” If you’re like most of us mere mortals, Reading Comp is a complete pain: long, nearly incomprehensible passages on subjects about which we know little or nothing, and care even less, followed by inscrutable questions that seem to have been devised by the Sphinx herself. What’s to be done to tackle this part of the Verbal section?

How To Beat GMAT Reading Comprehension

Well, if you’ve looked into any part of the GMAT with the least little bit of attention, you will have noticed that this beastly test is filled with recurring patterns, and, though widely varying Reading Comp passages hardly seem likely to harbor repeated patterns, the questions … Read full post

Yesterday, we posted a slightly disturbing GMAT Sentence Correction practice question on Facebook. It was mostly disturbing due to the content (creeeepy!), but there was also a lot going on in this particular sentence and the answer choices. Check it out.

As is often the case in GMAT Sentence Correction, this question tests several issues, which you can identify by verbally scanning the answer choices:

“If Professor…is right” versus “Should Professor…(be) right”

Verb tense: “is” versus “had been”

“connection of X and Y” versus “connection between X and Y”

Let’s address these issues one at a time.

“If Professor…is right” versus “Should Professor…(be) right”

The GMAT prefers “If Professor…is right” to “Should Professor…(be) right”. The former is simpler and uses the simple present tense to match the later verb “is (not merely coincidental)”. These two verbs must match tense since they describe events that happen simultaneously. Thus you can eliminate … Read full post

GMAT Reading Comprehension is an important question type to master. If you haven’t yet tackled this week’s passage, take a look at it now and take a few minutes to answer the associated questions that we posted. They are the questions you should work through each time you break down a reading comp passage.

Now, let’s talk analysis.

The TOPIC of this passage, or the broad main idea, is Knowles’s theory of and assumptions about andragogy. GMAT passages don’t contain a lot of filler, so you usually see the gist of the topic emerge in the first paragraph, if not in the first sentence.

The SCOPE of the passage is a more detailed focus within the topic. In this passage, the scope is the characteristics of adult learners. The bulk of the passage lists and describes the characteristics of adult learners that inform the theory of andragogy.

Once you put in the hard work to know and detect GMAT sentence correction errors, you’re going to catch those mistakes all around you.

A recent example: one of my British friends and I were watching futbol (I’ll go with the Spanish spelling so as to not confuse sports), and I picked up on a weird (but commonly accepted) verb agreement error in futbol journalism—using a plural verb/pronoun to refer to a single team.

If you are referring to a singular entity, regardless of what it contains, is the subject singular or plural? Perhaps a silly question, and here are some perhaps really obvious examples:

The coach is…
The league is…
This team is…

BUT, then, take a look at these actual news stories from the European press:

“Real Madrid have a golden opportunity to open up a huge lead in the Champions League group stage…”

If you need help with your GMAT prep, we’ve got you covered. Now is your chance to see one of our GMAT experts in action, breaking down the GMAT exam and introducing you to proven Kaplan methods and strategies that will allow you to dominate your competition on GMAT Test Day.

If you attended any of the free GMAT practice tests that we held recently, then you’ve already met some of our GMAT experts. What better way to continue your GMAT prep than to attend a free, live, online session that’s focused on introducing you to the most efficient approach to every question type that you’ll see on the GMAT?

Here’s an example of the type of questions you’ll see in our upcoming GMAT Sample Class:

The youngest of 4 children has siblings who are 3, 5, and 8 years older than she is. If the average (arithmetic mean) age … Read full post